There are many cleaning devices which employ a rotating or moving brush element and a source of water or another cleaning fluid to remove soil from a golf club or other implement. Three examples of such devices are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,148,396, issued to Smith on Sept. 15, 1964; U.S. Pat. No. 3,332,099, issued to Reiter on July 25, 1967; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,619,841, issued to Russell et al. on Nov. 16, 1971. Such devices typically require a source of electric power, as they use electric motors to turn the brush elements and often require a pump to draw the cleaning fluid from a bulky tank for delivery to the brushes. Water is used in the cleaning process and a metal club shaft will conduct electricity, so such apparatus creates an inherent electrical shock hazard.
Furthermore, such devices generally do not allow the operator to observe the progress of cleaning, as cleaning must take place within a housing to avoid excessive spray. (Prior practice has been to dribble or spray the cleaning fluid into the interior of the brush, causing the brush to fling the cleaning fluid outwardly.) The operator must clean a club within a housing of the device for awhile, remove the club from the device, examine it for cleanliness, and if necessary repeat the process until the club is clean. Prior devices are thus too bulky and inconvenient to be practice for use by an individual golfer.
Prior club cleaners also lack the necessary adaptations to clean high loft clubs, particularly higher-numbered irons or sand wedges, the working face and shaft of which are much more nearly perpendicular than corresponding parts of lower loft clubs.
Finally, prior automated club cleaners cannot be used with complete safety to the clubs and operator, as they include moving parts but no limitation on the amount of force turning them.